


Crystalline

by DasWarSchonKaputt



Category: Death Note
Genre: Alternate Universe - Light Is Not Kira, Implied/Referenced Suicide, POV Alternating, POV First Person, i dunno what else to tag this as
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 20:09:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5553677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DasWarSchonKaputt/pseuds/DasWarSchonKaputt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six years ago, an 11-year-old Yagami Light watched his father throw away each and every one of his principles in the pursuit of justice.</p><p>It isn’t until he meets Amane Misa, supermodel turned popstar and ex-Kira-suspect, that Light begins to understand why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Weird little AU, this is. Light is angsty as fuck, Misa is a sympathetic character once we get down to it, and Sayu is angry. With everyone. But Misa most of all.
> 
> At the moment, I'm not really decided on any pairings. Make your case and I'll probably listen.

**.Light**

_10 January 2010_

Snow. 

When you consider the vast array of meteorological conditions possible in the world, the precise combinations that produce snowfall are actually rather narrow. Too cold? Not enough moisture in the air. Too hot? Good luck getting those ice crystals to form. 

Snow is finicky and inconvenient – it can cripple a city in a night, leave transport networks in tatters, paralyse all but its most basic functions – and yet, we romanticise the crap out of it. I suppose it’s because of the drama of it all. A sweeping white spread out across a grey and dirty backdrop – I’ll admit that the symbolism lines up pretty nicely. 

I don’t know how I feel about snow. It’s been present at far too many significant events in my life for me to take a completely unbiased approach to it, and yet… 

Even I can see that it’s beautiful. 

It is snowing the first time I meet Amane Misa. 

Lazy would probably be the best way to describe the weather as I stand in a line outside Sakura TV Headquarters in Tokyo. The snowflakes are small and slow as they drift downwards, melting away into water the second they touch the ground. A small smile twitches on my lips at the sight and I stretch a gloved hand out to catch one. 

When I look back up, Yuri is staring at me, head tilted to the side. 

“Is there something wrong?” I ask, dropping my hand. 

She blinks, as if surprised to have been caught watching me. “Ah, no,” she says, slightly flustered. “I just—I still don’t get why you volunteered to come with me.” She fiddles with the ends of her pale pink mittens – a nervous gesture that she has had as long as I have known her. “I thought you didn’t like Misa-Misa.” 

_I don’t._

“I guess I just like spending time with you,” I say, smiling gently at her. The expression is natural and practised, effortlessly charming. It sinks into my face like poison. 

Yuri blushes and ducks her head. “Yeah,” she says, “but you’re usually so… studious. And it’s the To-Oh entrance exams next weekend – I just didn’t think you would have time.” She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m glad, though. You work too hard, Light.” 

I laugh awkwardly, feigning embarrassment. “Maybe,” I say, “but it’s nice to get out like this and spend some time together.” 

Yuri chances me a shy look. “Even if I’m dragging you to see some popstar?” 

I let my eyes drift up to the sign above our heads proclaiming Amane Misa’s presence. “Even then,” I say. 

Yuri looks away. 

I am a terrible person for manipulating her like this. The truth of the matter is that I chose to accompany Yuri because I know that nothing will ever come of it. Last year, her mother married a wealthy American businessman; once she has graduated high school, she will be joining them in the US for university. 

So I can play with her feelings as much as I need to, tap-dance over the line between friendliness and flirting, and she will likely never act on it. 

Like I said, I am a terrible person. 

Ahead of us, I can see the line of people draw shorter once more. There are barely any of them left now – another half an hour and Yuri and I will be standing in front of Amane Misa’s autograph booth. 

The thought is… sobering. 

My hands flutter momentarily at my sides, desperate to rise and smooth out non-existent wrinkles in my clothes before I catch myself in the act and force them to a stop. I’m not nervous, I try to insist. 

I almost believe the lie. 

“So,” I say, drawing Yuri back into conversation, “when did you become a fan of Amane Misa?” 

Yuri hums, index finger tapping against the corner of her mouth. “A while ago,” she says. “Maybe… three years or so?” 

“So, just before high school?” 

She nods. “I mean, I used to think she was this complete _ditz_ , you know? But then I looked her up and I found out what she’d been through…” 

_What she’d been through._

My lips curl into a sneer without my permission. I smooth out my features before Yuri can see, but the words drop in my gut. 

_What she’d been through._

But we all know how this story goes. Amane has made sure of that. 

Six years ago, there was a rash of mysterious deaths. Criminals, mostly, but there was also the occasional innocent caught up in it all to make a point, and they all died in the same way: a fatal heart attack. The longer this went on the less inclined anyone was to see it as simply a coincidence; the police were scrambling for a suspect. 

What they came up with was a then-18-year-old aspiring-model. 

On 28 May 2004, the NPA arrested Amane on suspicion of being behind these deaths – an identity that the media had assigned the moniker “Kira”. For the next 50 days, she was held in isolation, had her human rights thoroughly violated, and was only released following a traumatic event involving a police officer pretending to execute her in an abandoned warehouse. 

Is it any surprise that the first thing she did when she got out was to go to the press? 

The press, for the their part, reacted with outrage. Amane’s career skyrocketed overnight; her face dominated the airwaves for over a month straight. It was the scandal of the decade. 

And, at the centre of that media clusterfuck was the man who had authorised all of this, the Chief of the Kira Taskforce, the Deputy Director of the NPA. 

That deputy director was my dad. 

“Light?” 

I blink. “Sorry,” I say, “spaced out a bit there. You were saying?” 

But Yuri does not take the bait. “You had a really scary look on your face for a moment,” she says. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine.” 

It will all be fine, I tell myself in concert with my spoken words. And if it’s not, well. We’re in public. There is only so much Amane can do. 

The closer we move to the autograph booth, the warmer the air starts to feel. They have probably set up some kind of heater near Amane so she won’t freeze in the cold, but it’s obviously been running for a while. I strip off my gloves first, then my hat, but leave my scarf in place. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but I can’t quite bring myself to show my full face to Amane. 

_A swarm of police officers in helmets, a hand crushing your own and a white-faced gasp of your father’s name—_

_You cannot see his face, though. If you are right, he is safe. You have never been wrong before._

_Please, let this not be the first time._

Sayu would definitely say I’m being paranoid. 

It’s a good thing, then, that Sayu does not know I am here. She won’t ever know, if luck is on my side. I certainly will not be telling her. 

All too soon, there is only one person stood in front of Yuri and me in the line. I watch dispassionately as they bounce up to the booth and thrust a copy of _Eighteen_ at the singer. Amane smiles and tilts her head, charm layered on so thick you could scrape it off with a knife. 

She’s good at this, I begrudgingly admit. She would have to be, though. It’s her job. 

“Next!” The shout comes from a short but bulky man. I flicker my eyes over him, cataloguing the suit-and-sunglasses routine with a flat acceptance. He’s probably private security, which, given Amane’s rather disastrous track record with stalkers, isn’t much of a surprise. 

“Come on, Light,” Yuri says. She tugs me forward with her, now-bare hand slotted tightly into mine. 

I’m not sure what I expected from Amane Misa close-up. I don’t even know what I’m looking for when I scrutinise her expression. I just want to _know._

What is it about you, I think accusingly, that pushed my father to such extremes? 

I honestly have no idea. 

On the surface, Amane Misa is polished. Purposefully cute and vacuous in a way that doesn’t ping as entirely false. Her make-up is perfect, her skin is bright and unblemished, and her teeth are straight and white. It is a conventional type of beauty and she knows how to use it well. 

A kindred spirit in that respect, I suppose. 

When she spots Yuri’s hand held in mine, Amane’s eyes light up. “Are you two on a date?” she asks, voice pitched high and bubbly. “That’s so cute!” 

Yuri freezes, then drops my hand as if it burned her. “No, no, no,” she rushes out. “No, Light and I are just friends.” Her eyes shift to mine, as if she’s worried that I’ve somehow taken the comment the wrong way. 

I almost snort. I have been very determinedly ignoring the potential “wrong way” ever since I met Yuri. She’s safe on that front. 

“Light?” Amane says, tilting her head. “That’s an odd name.” 

Yuri nods. “And it’s written with the kanji for moon,” she replies. “I was calling him ‘Tsuki’ for two weeks before he corrected me.” 

There’s a certain subtle horror associated with the realisation that someone you know is taking the time to tell an ex-Kira-suspect how to spell your name. Yuri doesn’t realise the way her words put me on edge, but I see Amane’s eyes narrow almost imperceptibly at my not-quite-hidden reaction. 

_We are in public. There is only so much she can do._

I am being ridiculous. Kira has been gone for years. Amane was proven innocent, by the Great Detective _L_ , of all people. I have no right to be so jumpy and I didn’t come here to find myself some new form of paranoia for my collection. 

“So,” Amane says, tone gently teasing, “is Light-san here for his sister, or…?” 

I barely suppress laughter at the suggestion. Sayu would sooner shank Amane Misa than buy one of her albums. 

“Just here to keep Yuri company,” I say, the words slightly muffled by the scarf around my neck. 

Amane turns to Yuri, a hint of mischief in her features. “Sounds a lot like a date, Yuri-chan.” She winks. “So, did you bring something for me to sign, or do you want to buy a photo for ¥3,000?” 

It’s back to business from then on. Yuri digs into her bag and pulls out a copy of Amane’s latest album, which is almost tauntingly titled “Kira Kira”. The singer scrawls a brief message across it and then she turns to me. 

“And Light-san?” 

“Oh, no,” I start to say, but Yuri is quicker. She pulls out a copy of _Eighteen_ – the same that the fan earlier had – and places it in front of Amane. 

“His name’s Asashi Light,” Yuri says. “So you can address it to that.” 

Ten minutes later, I’m staring down at Amane Misa’s lurid blonde hair and reading through the words written over it. 

_It was so nice to meet Asashi Light-san and his cute friend! Misa-Misa wishes them all the best in love!_

I crumple the magazine in my hands. 

What a waste of time. 

\-- 

“Enjoy your date?” 

“It wasn’t a date, Sayu.” 

“It’s a little sad that I’m actually inclined to believe that, Light.” 

I crack a smile, hanging up my scarf and coat on the hooks beside the front door. “I had no idea that having a life outside of romantic entanglements was so depressing.” 

“It’s more the fact that your life seems to revolve solely around school and tennis that makes it sad,” Sayu shoots back. “You must be the most boring teen genius I’ve ever met, brother-mine. Aren’t you supposed to be deeply eccentric, or something?” 

Shuffling further into our cramped apartment, I find Sayu sat at the kitchen table. She has her school books spread out in front of her in a deliberate show of being hard at work. The vast number of tabs open in the browser on her laptop tells a different story, though. 

I ruffle her hair, ignoring the squawk the action garners. “I can develop some quirks if you want,” I offer. “A colour schedule for my wardrobe, perhaps?” 

Sayu snorts. “Please, I don’t think I could handle you if you got any _more_ anal.” 

I ignore the jibe with practised dignity and peer over her shoulder at her homework. “You need any help?” 

She shakes her head. “I promised myself I would do my work on my own this week,” she replies. “Give you more time to cram for the entrance exams on Saturday. Not that you need it, mind you, but I know how prissy you get when we infringe on your study time.” 

“You say the sweetest things,” I say flatly. 

Sayu grins. “Someone has to keep your ego in check.” 

She wasn’t always like this. Sayu did not spring from the womb as 84 pounds of irreverent sarcasm and sardonic cheer. As a child, she was… sweet, I suppose. Innocent. Irritating. My indifference to her was only balanced by her open adoration for me; I thought she had no substance and she thought I hung the moon. 

But those were childish beliefs, each born out of their own kinds of dismissal, and sooner or later, we both had to leave them behind. 

I don’t remember much about the time following my father’s resignation from the NPA, but intellectually I know that it must have been difficult. Dishonoured and disgraced, Sayu and I were social outcasts – inconvenient bystanders in the public’s crusade for our father’s head. 

Under that sort of pressure, you have two options. You can either buckle and break down, or you can stand up, stand tall, and refuse to kneel. 

Sayu chose the latter. 

My father chose the former. 

And this is where it ends up: an embittered child aged into a jaded teen, a fractured family struggling by in a city ambivalent to their circumstance, an overcrowded apartment that still feels empty. 

“Oh,” Sayu says suddenly. “Mum spoke to me earlier – she wants to know what you want to do on the anniversary next month.” 

_“—that his son?”_

_“Yeah. Poor kid. He was the one who found—”_

I let my face shut down, features smoothing out into an impenetrable mask. “Whatever you two decide is fine with me,” I say. 

It’s not a lie. 

So far as my father is concerned, I really could not care less. 

\-- 

_12 January 2010_

Bounce, step, hit. Bounce, step, hit. Bounce, step, hit. 

My breaths are even and measured as I move. This is not a strenuous exercise; I have long since mastered the technique behind each hit. It is predictable, angles and equations, and so very, very mindless. 

One last neon-bright ball flies towards me. 

Bounce. Step. Hit. 

Done. 

The indoor courts where I practise tennis during the winter are scrappy and out of the way. I’m 90% certain that the gym that owns them is a front for a money laundering operation – they only accept cash – but whatever unsavoury business it is covering for stays far away from me, so what do I care? I get to train three times a week for a barely significant sum. Anything else is ancillary. 

As I dry off my face to the side of the court, I hear a set of light footsteps approaching me from the side. I turn to see my coach, bad haircut and goatee marking his otherwise average face, and he gives me a deceptively easy-going grin in response. 

“Given any more thought to my proposal, Asashi-kun?” 

That’s funny, that is – the way that he has phrased it so it sounds like a casual offer. 

From the ages of six to sixteen, Tashima Katsuma was all set to become the next Boris Becker. Unfortunately, a car accident on the way to his Olympic try-out destroyed any hope he had of playing professional tennis ever again. A tragic backstory, I’m sure, but I would probably have more sympathy if he had found some other kid to live vicariously through. 

“I told you last time, coach,” I reply, reaching for my water bottle, “I want to focus on school. Training for international competitions would take too much time.” 

“School’s school,” Tashima retorts, “but _this_ ,” he gestures around the court, “is _tennis_.” 

If he didn’t coach me for free, I would have walked away from this idiot years ago. 

Speaking of: “You’re an idiot,” I say blandly. 

He shrugs carelessly. “From what I’ve heard, that’s not saying much when compared to you, Mr Top Student in Japan.” 

It says a little about him, doesn’t it, that he somehow manages to make that title sound like an insult. 

“I’m leaving.” 

“What? Asashi-kun—” 

“See you on Thursday, coach.” 

“Asashi—” 

Once I reach the locker room, I let myself drop to the ground, back against the battered lockers. My head rolls back and I think without inflection, _I’m trapped._

I should just come out with it, I know. _I want to quit._ I have never had any trouble asserting myself before, but this is— 

Different. 

When I first started playing tennis, aged 11, I hated it. For the first time in my life, I had found something that wasn’t easy, that did not come naturally; each loss was an exercise in frustrated humiliation. If I had been any other preteen, I probably would have abandoned it there and then but I—I was proud. Arrogant, maybe. 

So I stuck with it. 

And before long I recognised it for the blessing in disguise it was: a challenge. And then, it was addictive. 

I poured more and more of my time into tennis. I relished in the idea that there was something more to my life, something beyond strict perfection, and then— 

The damned sport saved my life. 

It sounds like a line from one of those dramas that Sayu likes to pretend she hates. It’s true, though, so utterly, ashamedly true. 

Ironic, isn’t it? The thing that just a few years ago was my salvation has become my shackle. Funny how life works. 

A phone chime interrupts my thoughts and I reach down to my pile of stuff to check my mobile. It’s a message from Sayu – she wants to know when I’ll be back. 

I tap out a quick message – _20:30, same as always_ – and snap the flip phone shut. 

\-- 

I’m greeted by a pleasant chill as I step out into the night air. My feet start on the familiar route back to the subway station, hands forced deep into coat pockets and head turned down. 

And then I hear the scream. 

For a second, all I can hear is Sayu, desperate and scared, and I don’t even think. I run, tennis racket uselessly clattering to the ground behind me, and I tear around a corner— 

It is not Sayu. 

Amane Misa is curled in on herself in the shadow of a dumpster, hands clutched to the sides of her face. She scrambles backwards into the grime, lips moving without sound. Just behind her, the man who stood by her booth on Sunday is lying on the ground, blood pooling from an unseen wound, and above him stands a second man, but I don’t think this one is private security. 

Scruffy, crazed, bloody – pick an adjective. None of them are inaccurate. He leers at Amane and flicks his switchblade, splattering her with the blood of her former protector. 

_I’m about to witness a murder._

I should just turn around and walk away. It is the wisest course of action, to walk away and call the police, to stay alive, stay safe. 

I don’t, though. 

_A birthday card stained with red. Two words—I’m sorry._

_No, you’re not._

“Hey!” My voice works without my permission and I shout out to the would-be-murderer. “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” 

Amane’s eyes widen at the sound of my voice, then jerk towards me. I can see the breathless hope in her eyes, but I don’t share it. 

_All this means is that you will not die alone._

The man turns around slowly. I get a clear look at his face and it is habit, nothing more, that has me cataloguing his most distinctive features. I’m not going to live long enough to give a description to the police. 

“I’ve already called the cops,” I lie and my tone sounds detached. Cool and calm. The polar opposite to how I really feel. “You have bare seconds before they’re here – you could say that they’re somewhat paranoid whenever the name Amane Misa is mentioned.” 

_Run,_ I try to tell Amane without words. _Run, please, run._

She doesn’t. 

We are both such idiots. 

The man starts to walk towards me, slashing the knife through the air in front of him. Clearly, my warning about the police means nothing to him. 

_Run,_ I try to tell my legs. _Run, please, run._

_“Light… Why are you covered in paint?”_

The blade is sharp. 

_It’s not paint._

I’ve read that in times of high stress, the human mind can hone in on the weirdest things. You can be facing your own death and panicking because you forgot to make your bed that morning; it doesn’t make sense and that’s kind of the point. 

So this is what runs through my mind as I watch my shirt blossom into crimson: _at least I have a reason to quit tennis now._

Amane screams again, but it’s not as crisp this time. I don’t know why I ever mistook her for Sayu; their voices are completely different. 

Then, there’s a dull thud, like a body hitting the ground. 

I don’t know how much time passes before Amane appears above me, face contorted into open panic. Something wet drips onto my cheek – rain? No, I realise, Amane is _crying_. 

Not so polished after all, I think. 

“Asashi-san, right?” she chokes out. “You’re Asashi Light-san. I met you at the signing and I—” she lets out a sob, “I liked your name.” A trembling hand reaches up to furiously rub tears away from a smudged face. “You’re going to be okay, Asashi-san, I promise. You—you saved my life.” 

I don’t know why I say what I say in response. Maybe I’m still the same foolish child from all those years ago, stubbornly insisting on his father’s innocence beyond all reason. Stupidly loyal to his memory. Maybe I’m sick of living in a lie crafted for my own thankless safety. 

Maybe I just want someone, _anyone_ to know. 

My mouth opens. “My name… is Yagami.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is what Mum does not get: we can scrub and scrub and scrub at ourselves, repaint our lives again and again, but we will not be free of Yagami Soichiro. Never.

**.Sayu**

_13 January 2010_

Light is an idiot.

He’s emotionally stunted, able to read and manipulate people but never quite able to relate or understand, and he makes stupid choices in the name of his own twisted sense of self. The worst thing about all this, though?

I’m the only damned one of us that can see it.

God, I should just make a career out of it and be done with the world. Asashi Sayu: Light-reader.

Mum is alternately enamoured by and too busy for Light. It’s a step up from her attitude to me, which is flat, undisguised apathy. Not that I care, particularly. The only thing worse than having a mother that doesn’t give a damn would be giving a damn about her.

But Light—Light is different.

It makes me angry sometimes, so freaking pissed off I could vibrate out of my skin, because when faced with all his neuroses and flaws, I still love him. Love him more, maybe. There is a warped comfort in the idea that your brother is every bit as fucked up as you are.

 _Probably more so,_ I think, a touch snide. I’m not the one lying in a hospital bed, after all.

And what for? Amane Fucking Misa, that’s what.

I turn my head slightly, bringing the bottle-blond bitch into my field of vision. Supermodel turned pop sensation, homewrecker extraordinaire, chronic stalker-bait, ex-Kira-suspect… Quite the résumé, wouldn’t you say? And she’s just 24! Think of the levels of utter disgrace she could reach by 30.

Light should have just walked away from her. She’d be dead and he’d be unharmed. Two birds, one stone.

 _You are such an idiot,_ I silently tell my brother’s unconscious body.

I know I’m being harsh. This isn’t Amane’s fault any more than it is Light’s.

“Yagami-chan,” Amane says. It takes me a while to figure out that she’s talking to me.

I don’t know how she heard that name. I don’t know if she recognised me, or if she recognised Light, or if he told her, but it’s not mine. Not anymore.

“Asashi,” I correct sharply. “My name is Asashi. Asashi Sayu.”

She blinks. “But—”

_Fuck this._

“I don’t want you here,” I say bluntly. “I don’t want you anywhere near my family, ever.” I reach out and put a hand on Light’s leg, a casual display of exclusion. _Us against them,_ I think, _and you are not a member of the us._ “You have done more than enough damage already.”

For the briefest of seconds, Amane looks staggered. Then, something hardens in her posture and she presses her lips together. “I see,” she says.

_No, you don’t._

She stands, long legs straightening and chin held level, and I hate her so much. She looks beautiful in that moment, refined and perfected – regal. I want to strip away every last inch of symmetry in her face, scratch my nails across her flawless skin, rip her clothes. I don’t, though.

I just watch.

I always just fucking watch.

Amane bows to 90 degrees. “I apologise if I have made you uncomfortable,” she says. The words sound tired and practised. Insincere.

She straightens and leaves.

I wonder distantly if I’m supposed to rush out and take back my words. Stammer my way through an apology I don’t mean – won’t ever mean. If Dad were here, he’d want me to.

That thought is unsurprisingly ineffective. When you fuck up like Dad did, you lose all power as a beacon of morality.

I miss him.

Not the scourge who tortured a teenager to get her to confess, not the villain who forgot everything he used to stand for, not the broken man that Light fo—

I miss him. My dad. The father who dragged himself home after a long day at work and kissed the top of my head. The husband who made Mum into something more than an emotionally-distant shadow over our household. The hero who taught Light to always do what was right, no matter the personal cost.

I miss the illusion I lived with. What’s that saying? Ignorance is bliss. There’s some truth in those words.

I turn to Light’s sleeping face. He doesn’t realise he’s doing it, but sometimes, when I see Light move or speak, I can’t help but see Dad in his place. The mannerisms that they share are like echoes – fleeting, but unmistakable.

It has been six years.

This is what Mum does not get: we can scrub and scrub and scrub at ourselves, repaint our lives again and again, but we will not be free of Yagami Soichiro. Never.

Maybe that is why she is not here.

Maybe I’m making excuses for a shell of a woman.

Light’s leg shifts suddenly under my hand. I tense, eyes scouring his face for any sign of wakefulness, and I see it. His lips twitch, then his eyes, then—

“…Sayu?”

I smile. “Morning, dipshit.”

\--

Let me tell you a story.

It is not a happy story, nor is it a comfortable one, but it’s the only one I’ve got. It doesn’t even have a happy ending, because it’s real life, and reality does not lend itself to closure.

The story starts with a little girl. Me. Asashi – or Yagami, back then, I suppose – Sayu.

I was the beloved youngest child. My older brother, Light, was brilliant and quick and impeccable, but there is something untouchable and distant about perfection. At times, it felt like he was standing far out of all of our reaches, and he was unwilling to make any effort to bridge that gap. I was just easier in that respect. Flawed. Human. Something more relatable that made my parents pour affection over me in a way they never did with Light.

Maybe they thought that he didn’t need it. It wouldn’t surprise me, to be honest; my parents have always been a little blind when it comes to Light.

I had an idyllic childhood. What else can you call it? My parents loved me and I never wanted for anything. I had friends – far too many to see their value – and I had clothes and toys and an older brother who could do anything.

But then.

But then, there was Kira. The mystery killer. Deadly karma given form.

I don’t remember much about the initial media blow-up; I was too young to really watch the news. It trickled down, though, and eventually everyone was talking about it. Kira was either the most terrifying mass-murderer the world had ever seen, or he was our light to salvation – there were only two sides to the argument and everyone had picked one. There was no middle ground.

And slowly but surely, as the story reached fever-pitch, the flawless nature of my childhood began to flake away.

Dad worked long hours. Mum lost herself to worry. They fought, screaming at each other in the kitchen when they thought Light and I had gone to bed, and though I have long since forgotten the exact words they threw at each other, I remember the basics.

Dad was dedicated to solving the case. It came before all else, beyond duty and family – an obsession, maybe. He said it was the right thing to do, that it was about _justice_ , that he would not be the man that Yagami Sachiko married if he gave up.

Mum said it was ego.

She was right.

When the Amane Misa scandal broke, the last shreds of stability that were holding us all together fell away into nothing. Light and I were children caught in the crossfire, slowly being dragged down into the abyss with our disgraced father.

Less than a month after the first headline, Dad swallowed his gun.

Light was the one who found his body.

I can forgive Amane Misa for many, many things. She was a child, traumatised into half-finished maturity, and she was looking for justice for the wrongs that were committed against her. Maybe Dad’s life was the price he had to pay for what he did to her.

But this is what I cannot forgive her for: a catatonic brother, covered in his father’s blood; a suicide note written on the back of Light’s unsent birthday card; a terrified eight year-old who keeps shaking her brother because he is like a breathing corpse—

I cannot forgive her. I will not forgive her.

She has destroyed my family in ways that she will never understand. She has destroyed my brother in ways that _he_ will never understand. And still, she sits there, smiling vapidly at the camera, talking about her top tips for losing weight, miles away from the carnage she caused.

She just keeps on taking and taking and taking.

I hate her.

I’m allowed to hate her.

\--

Amane Misa’s brush with death is the leading story on all the news sites. The picture they’re using is a good one, Amane smiling at the camera in her fake-cutesy manner, and I scroll past it to scan through the text. The precise details of the incident are sparse and, luckily, Light’s name has been kept out of it. I close the window on the usual blather about ongoing investigations and the NPA’s refusal to comment.

Sometimes, I think, tragedy strikes.

Your brother decides to play hero and ends up in hospital recovering from a stab wound. You sleep for exactly three hours, terrified beyond all reason that you are going to lose him too. You wait at the hospital for your mother, convinced that this will be enough to finally pull her out of her orbit, but she never comes.

And, next to all this, life goes on.

I step off the subway at the station nearest to our apartment and pull my coat tighter around myself. Light’s catastrophic Good Samaritan audition hasn’t put a damper on his desire to study until he is more academia than human, which means I have been dispatched to fetch him his materials. It makes me feel uncomfortably like an errand girl, but it isn’t like I have anything better to do today.

Well, there’s school, but Nobaru-sensei is likely to be more pissed off if I turn up late than if I simply don’t turn up at all.

Light and I have been privately educated for as long as I can remember. He’s been on scholarships even longer than that and I am—smart, I guess, but not at the same level as my brother. Not smart enough to rate a scholarship, at least.

I don’t know what kind of budgeting wizardry Mum has pulled off to account for my school fees, but she won’t talk about it. Nothing new there.

Suddenly, something collides with me. I’m taken completely off guard, knocked backwards by the force and sent crashing into the ground. My head hits the concrete ground with a solid thunk and stars dance in front of my eyes.

“Oh _shit_ , that _really_ didn’t sound good – uh, miss, are you okay?”

My vision clears to the sight of a boy my age, kneeling beside me. He’s very obviously a foreigner, even if I would never have pegged him as such from his Japanese alone, with brown hair that is layered with a fading red colouring. There is a handheld game resting on the ground near his right hand, which at least provides an explanation for why he didn’t see me, and he is hurriedly punching something into his mobile.

I sit up. “I’m fine,” I say.

“Are you sure, because I can—”

“I’m _fine_.” And I really don’t have time for this. “Watch where you’re going next time.”

I brush past him, determinedly dismissive, and force my way through the crowds. I don’t look back, but I am left with the unsettling feeling that he is watching me leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit of a shorter chapter, mostly because it serves mostly as filler. Sayu's kind of dropped a lot of exposition in this chapter, but it's also important to remember that she doesn't exactly have a full version of events.
> 
> Oh and the guy at the last bit of the chapter? I'm sure you all know who he is.
> 
> In terms of characters, I'd say that Light's jaded. Misa is a little fractured, but she puts on a good show. Sayu, though? Sayu's _angry_. She's angry about a lot of things, but she doesn't feel secure in showing that anger to some of them, so it ends up all over the place.
> 
> Next chapter we're back to Light's POV. I think.


End file.
